hot topic | ABORTION LEGISLATION
© AP/Corbis/Rogelio V. Solis
When Talk Turns to Abortion, Heated Rhetoric Takes Over by Jennifer Ginn
CAPITOL IDEAS
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JULY / AUG 2012
22
Although abortion is always hotly debated in the public arena, the discussion among policymakers also seems to be turning more intense. “Over the past 20 years or so, we have really seen a shift in the types of bills we are seeing and the debates at the state level,” said Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager for the Guttmacher Institute. “What we are seeing are new issues coming to the fore and they are more onerous on providers and women. “The bills are more extreme. We’re seeing abortion bans,” she said. “There is this demonization of abortion and, increasingly, there has been this rhetoric that really stigmatizes abortion. … When you get that kind of language flying around, it really makes it difficult to have civil conversations about abortion and about women’s health.”
Not Heated, but Emotional
Georgia House Whip Edward Lindsey Jr.
characterizes legislative discussion around House Bill 954 as “emotional” rather than heated. The bill, signed into law in May, outlaws abortion after 20 weeks. A late-night session ended with an agreement to include an exception that allows for abortions after 20 weeks in the event of gross fetal abnormalities or if the mother’s life or health is threatened; that provision was not included in the original bill. Newspapers reported that a fight almost broke out in the Capitol between those who were for and those who were against the bill. “Abortion will always be something emotional, always be something difficult to discuss, because it sort of goes to the core of how we perceive ourselves and how we perceive our society,” said Lindsey, who supported the legislation. “It doesn’t mean we don’t talk about it; it means we talk about it. It’s important.
“What’s harder than talking about it is the listening, the acknowledgement the other side may have a point on one issue or another,” he said. “There are extremes on both sides of this issue that tend to shout the loudest. There are those of us in between, rolling up our sleeves. Our job is to make sure everyone listens.” Georgia Sen. Nan Orrock voted against House Bill 954. After the Senate approved the bill, she and other Democratic women senators walked out of the chamber in protest. She said legislators ignored testimony of doctors and women who had been faced with the choice of a late-term abortion after discovering severe abnormalities in their fetus. “It enraged us,” she said. “There is a line you draw and you will not stand quietly.” Orrock, who was sworn into the Georgia House in 1987 and became a senator in 2007, said the turning point in political discourse was the 2010 election, which saw the rise
“There are extremes on both sides of this issue that tend to shout the loudest. There are those of us in between, rolling up our sleeves. Our job is to make sure everyone listens.” —Georgia House Whip Edward Lindsey Jr.
